Peter Bodnarus was art director for four combined seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, and his work is reflected in many of the most iconic scenes from the franchise. We go in-depth into the creation and design of many of his pieces from the series in this pre-recorded interview.

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello everyone, my name is David Read. Welcome to Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. This is episode 313. Peter Bodnarus, art director for Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, is joining me in this pre-recorded episode so the mods will not be taking your questions at this time. Hopefully, I’ll hit pretty much everything you would like to ask him anyway. Peter Budnaris, art director. Hello, sir. Welcome to Dial the Gate.

Peter Bodnarus:
Glad to be here, David. Really glad.

David Read:
I’m really thrilled to have you. You were art director on Stargate SG-1 from Season Six to Season Seven and then they switched you over to Atlantis for Seasons One and Two. You were there 2002 to ’05.

Peter Bodnarus:
Something like that.

David Read:
All right. I see you have an Emmy back there. What is that, if I may ask?

Peter Bodnarus:
I was on Shogun and I was part of the Emmy-winning art department on Shogun. The Emmy that you see there, the statuette, is actually for another show, Monsterville: Cabinet of Horrors. It was a Daytime Emmy. I just mashed it together with a bit of Shogun memorabilia and I’ll let people draw their own conclusions.

David Read:
Absolutely. I’ve been meaning to see Shogun. I hear it is excellent.

Peter Bodnarus:
I recommend it.

David Read:
From a historical perspective, from an entertainment perspective, from all of it?

Peter Bodnarus:
I would start with an entertainment perspective. It’s an absolutely gorgeous, well-told and gripping program. It’s the right mix of beautiful language and graphic violence.

David Read:
We all love our graphic violence down here in the States.

Peter Bodnarus:
Everything that’s happening sort of moves the story forward. I thought a lot about Stargate when I was working on Shogun because we’re trying to create these alien worlds. That’s one of the things I think that set Stargate apart; taking this anthropological approach seriously. I remember when I was a kid, you’d see science fiction and be like, “Oh, what would the alien plates look like? What would the alien knife and fork look like?” There’s nothing more alien than being in a society where it’s like, “What would the aliens’ tables and chairs look like?” There’s nothing more alien than being in a society where they’re like, “Tables, chairs? What are those?” When they eat, there’s no forks, there’s no knives, there’s no table. The house is the table and that leads to that culture of extreme cleanliness. I was able to immerse my design obsession and my design passion with working on that show and also my experience and my knowledge of Stargate. Ancient Japan is truly an alien culture and people were trying to get their brains around working on this show because it was so alien, but it was also known. We had a raft of Japanese consultants. I think I worked with five different people. I had a garden consultant, a traditional movement consultant, a samurai consultant. I worked with Harada Toru, who was a well-regarded filmmaker. We’re creating this absolutely alien world, but we have to be authentic. The way I explained it to people, it would be like if I was working on a Star Trek movie and we actually had a Klingon consultant who was like, “We’ve talked about this.” “When you’re drinking blood wine from the skull of your enemy, the nasal phalange has to be facing away from the mouth.”

David Read:
Wow. That is nuts.

Peter Bodnarus:
That was the level of, “When we’re severing the heads of the enemies, this is how we display them.” It’s done in a very particular way.

David Read:
The level of detail that is in so much of today’s programming… It’s not just because it’s in higher resolution now. Obviously, that’s a given, so things have to look good. But the historical accuracy, because the internet is readily available to us and people are gonna find out very quickly if you’re faking something. Also, the pride of getting it right. We’re starting from the beginning anyway, so let’s do it right.

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly. We had incredibly visionary producers. We had Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, they’re an American-Japanese couple. They brought this incredible insight into striving for authenticity, but also entertainment. One of the struggles we had on Shogun was that many of the consultants were not filmmakers. You strive for authenticity, but you also have to make it understandable to the viewer. First and foremost, we weren’t creating a theme park, we were creating an entertaining, engaging, riveting story that speaks to multiple people. So, while it had to be authentic to the Japanese experience and speak to Japanese culture, it also had to be comprehensible to other people. Again, it’s amazing how my Stargate experience informed my time on Shogun.

David Read:
Let’s go back to that. How did you know that putting pen to paper, and pencil, and all the different formats to paper was what you were gonna want to make yourself successful and satisfied as an adult and how did those roads eventually lead to Stargate?

Peter Bodnarus:
What I would say to all the kids out there is that your path is your path and it’s never a straight line. I was incredibly artistic as a child; I was always drawing. One of the problems though, is I went to a very strict Catholic school and doodling in your notebooks was a very bad thing.

David Read:
Bet you never doodled on the back of the tests when you were done early. I bet that was a no-no.

Peter Bodnarus:
Did you finish your tests early? I struggled in school but drawing was always, I suppose today you’d call it self-regulation. Drawing was always a thing that was a release. I was a good kid and I finished school and I put away art and actually became a banker. I was a bank manager.

David Read:
No way. You’re lying. Really?

Peter Bodnarus:
I was. At 24 years old.

David Read:
All right, your balance is $0, ma’am. You’d better be careful.

Peter Bodnarus:
I got into trouble. There was no room for humor in a bank.

David Read:
OK, here’s zero.

Peter Bodnarus:
A woman came in one day, she was mad. Her balance was out two cents and she’s like, “I want that two cents right now.” I took a couple of pennies out of the drawer and I put it on the counter and she’s like, “I need to speak to who’s in charge” and I’m like, “That’s me.”

David Read:
God. Some people, man.

Peter Bodnarus:
I decided that this wasn’t for me. I had an incredibly supportive group of friends who were like, “Dude, you can’t see it but we know who you are.” For my 25th birthday, they all got together and they bought me architecture books and pens and pencils and drafting equipment and art supplies and sketchbooks. They bought me this whole package.

David Read:
You had an intervention birthday.

Peter Bodnarus:
It was an intervention. It was absolutely an intervention. The next birthday, I was at architecture school at UBC. When I was at architecture school, that’s when I discovered that my capacity for drawing was actually something that I could make a living at. I was already in my mid-20s and I had had one degree and one career and that’s when I discovered that, “Oh, I can, there is another path.” After architecture, I relocated to Berlin, Germany. I lived in Berlin for a few years, learned German and worked for a couple of architecture firms. The stuff that always got notice in my work was my sketching and drawing abilities.

David Read:
Ja. Yes.

Peter Bodnarus:
“Oh, Peter, you’re so good at drawing. This is very good, ja.”

David Read:
“Very good, ja. Ja.”

Peter Bodnarus:
Berlin, they’re all Prussians. There’s no freehand sketching.

David Read:
You better make it to your train on time. Gosh.

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly.

David Read:
Wow, what an experience. You can drink beer at your desk!

Peter Bodnarus:
What’s that?

David Read:
You can drink beer at your desk.

Peter Bodnarus:
Not in Berlin.

David Read:
Not in Berlin. Really?

Peter Bodnarus:
Bavaria.

David Read:
My buddy sure did.

Peter Bodnarus:
Bavaria, you can drink beer at your desk. Berlin, you don’t have to show up till 10:00. In architecture, if you are the actual guy who is building, if you’re the stonemasons or the carpenters, they start their day at 7:00. The architects don’t stroll in till 10 o’clock but then they don’t go home till 8 o’clock. It’s a funny sort of culture there.

David Read:
How does Germany lead to Vancouver?

Peter Bodnarus:
While I was in Berlin, I had gotten an invitation to return to Vancouver to work with a professor of mine. She was starting her own firm, this sounds like I’m humble bragging, but honest to God, this is how it happened. She was starting her own architecture firm and she invited me to come back. I jumped at the chance because she wanted to hire me as a designer, which was a very, very difficult thing to do. When you’re starting in architecture, what I call the “creative economy of architecture” is very, very, very restrictive. There are a few guys at the top who have been there forever, they own the firms, they get to have all the design, and everybody else is doing the technical stuff. To be invited to design was like, “Oh my God.” It was also a little bit adventurous too. We were building projects in northern Canada for… I guess in the US you’d call them American Indians. Here in Canada, we call them First Nations. I was building projects with First Nations. We would travel to the village, we would meet with the elders, meet with the community, we’d discuss what their needs were. I ended up building a public school and a public kindergarten. I had two projects under my belt and this was all going very, very well. A really bad recession hit in the ’90s, Governments changed, the work changed and I ended up getting laid off. I moved into another firm, a very high-end corporate sort of real architecture firm. I was like, “Oh my God, I can’t do this. I’m back at the bank.” It was a funny culture where, no matter how long you’d been there or how talented you were, it was a little bit like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. There was one Willy Wonka and no matter how much experience or talent you had, everyone else was an Oompa Loompa.

David Read:
An Oompa Loompa. At least you could sing and dance.

Peter Bodnarus:
At least. I loved the uniforms.

David Read:
Are you able to be creative there? It’s not like you’re able to express your creative outlets at all other than exactly in the line of someone else’s vision. How fun is that?

Peter Bodnarus:
Which works for some people. Maybe in another universe where I had started in architecture, I had gone directly into architecture from high school, but by this time, I was already 30. I didn’t really relish the 10 years of doing the technical stuff before I had a chance to do the fun stuff. I had a friend, a very good friend, Brian Whittred, he is a director of photography. I think, now, he might actually be president of IATSE 669. He was at the intervention party and he was like, “Dude, I know a place. I know where you’ll be able to use your natural talents.” That’s how it started. At 35 years old with two degrees, I quit architecture even though I was halfway to being an intern architect. I got a job on a film; it was Insomnia with Al Pacino.

David Read:
Robin Williams.

Peter Bodnarus:
I got to meet Robin Williams.

David Read:
Man, one of the darker movies he did.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s part of him. That part, he never talked about it. I’ve seen this in my career; a lot of super talented comedians are also quite brilliant actors. I think there’s something about comedy that is, you have to access some pretty dark places to make the comedy work. I think if you access those same dark places but there’s no button at the end, it makes for some pretty compelling drama.

David Read:
There’s a lot of intensity there that’s real. Mrs. Doubtfire is my favorite film of his, the close second is One Hour Photo. His intensity and sadness, because there was a lot of sadness there if you’ve seen his documentary, are so sincere. Gosh, working on a film with him, man, I can only imagine, Peter.

Peter Bodnarus:
I cut in front of him at the donut line, that’s the only interaction I had. They had the mini donut truck on the lot, I look around, and there’s Robin Williams. I’m like, “Go ahead.” He’s like, “No, no, man. It’s OK. I don’t need these either.”

David Read:
It’s Insomnia, OK.

Peter Bodnarus:
I was on Insomnia, I’m 35 years old, two degrees. I am making photocopies, I am getting people coffee, I am taking film to be developed. I’m an art department assistant. I am at the bottom of the food chain, OK? I’m like, “Well, we’ll see. We’ll give this six months.”

David Read:
Yeah, give it a try.

Peter Bodnarus:
“I still have some contacts in architecture. We’ll see how this goes.”

David Read:
You’ve got a ripcord.

Peter Bodnarus:
I came in early one morning before everyone else and there was Nathan Crowley, many, many, much hair ago. He was our production designer and of course he went on to do some very great things. There’s Nathan and he’s building this huge landscape model, he’s got a meeting coming up. He had this almost academic approach to things, where he wouldn’t start by drawing things. He would start by getting images out of magazines. Everyone does it now, everyone goes to the internet and sources images, but this is way before the internet. He would order boxes and boxes of high-quality magazines that had images of different parts, locations and stuff. He would just go through these magazines and use that to build up his concept boards. In order to get people’s heads around what he was trying, he would build these big models, very loose models. This wasn’t something that was precious and supposed to be in front of the camera; this was a tool for discussion.

David Read:
Are we talking about the maquettes like some of the ones we’re about to see?

Peter Bodnarus:
Like some of the ones we’re about to see, exactly, maquettes. that was another thing, when I was in Berlin, Germans are known for their models and even in Germany people were like, “That’s some really good model building, my friend.”

David Read:
They save money too, because you can see it in smaller scale before you build it.

Peter Bodnarus:
Absolutely. You’d be amazed how many higher-ups and producers struggle to get that around their head. this is the time of early CGI and 3D modeling and computer modeling and everyone was very excited about 3D. The problem with 3D, which largely has been resolved now with 3D printing, is that if you have someone building a 3D model, you’re kind of looking at it through a window. You get everyone in the room, everyone looking at it, everyone’s looking at the same thing. There’s no Gucci lighting or cheater camera angles and it really helps people understand things. He walks in, he’s trying to get this model ready, he’s got the producers coming in. I can see that he’s a bit stressed and I just put my hand up and I said, “I can do that.” I ended up building all the models for all the sets on Insomnia. It’s for construction, but it’s also for producers, it’s for painters, it’s for everyone. I had this amazing time doing this stuff that I love to do that actually serves a very important role in helping people tell a story. I was like, “OK, maybe this’ll work.” From Insomnia, I went to The Core. I built a whole bunch of giant maquettes for The Core.

David Read:
Ah, The Driller. I love that movie. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.

Peter Bodnarus:
How great is Stanley Tucci? Yes. At the wrap party, my wife dropped a plate of hors d’oeuvres on his feet. Actually, no, it wasn’t her, it was someone else. The graphic designer dropped a plate of hors d’oeuvres on his feet. She ran and when Stanley Tucci looked up, my wife was standing right there and so he kind of made the association that it was her.

David Read:
No. Don’t send me to The Hunger Games, please.

Peter Bodnarus:
That was such a blast. I built all the maquettes for The Core except for the actual inside of the geode, which was built by a very experienced model builder who had been in the industry a long time. The guy was an absolute genius.

David Read:
You did the cockpit, the gimbaled cockpit?

Peter Bodnarus:
The gimbaled cockpit? No. What I built was the actual launch pad. We had the inverted gantry, I built a maquette of the inverted gantry. I built a maquette of the actual Earth ship in the warehouse. I built a kind of full-sized maquette of the Earth ship and then I built the warehouse and I built the gantry. I also built a full-scale mock-up of the nuclear devices that they were using.

David Read:
It’s amazing when you have a high budget, what you can get away with. “Let’s go to town.” I’m sure, of course, there are limits.

Peter Bodnarus:
After that, I worked on a couple of other things, Smallville and a few other things. What I did when I was sort of doing all this hands-on model building and sketching and stuff is I was also developing. I’ve always been passionate about working with the computer, working with 3D modeling. I knew that not only is that the future, but it’s just another tool, it’s another important tool. While I was doing this, I was teaching myself 3D modeling on a number of programs. I had produced some concept art of Superman, of I guess Kal-El’s pod that he came to Earth in, for Smallville.

David Read:
Right at the beginning, OK.

Peter Bodnarus:
Right at the beginning. This 3D model, this digital painting that I had done 25 years ago… Kids learn it in high school now, but back then, there were not a lot of people that were doing that. I had done this digital painting of this pod with fully textured rendered lighting and then in Photoshop, adding accents and stuff like that.

David Read:
Did it already have the triangle shape at that point?

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes. That was a direction from the production designer, ’cause basically the idea was that it has the shape of the House of-El. I get tingles just thinking about it now. “What a great idea. What a great idea.”

David Read:
And the capsule in the middle.

Peter Bodnarus:
While the design was not my idea, I’m gonna take a certain amount of credit for helping to realize it. At that point, I was like, “I don’t know that I can go back to architecture.” Architecture’s very serious and there’s an element of the bank in it. I remember, I think I was actually on Insomnia, I was building this beautifully rendered, colored, sculptured model of the Lake House. I had this existential crisis, I was like, “Is this what a responsible adult does with his life?” I realized it was more a question, “Are you allowed to have fun at work?” and I eventually decided the answer was yes. I produced this very, by today’s standards, very crude sort of digital painting. It was evocative and it communicated clearly the design intent and the painting and all that stuff and that made it into my portfolio. When I got called for Stargate, I went for my interview with the production designer at the time, Bridget McGuire.

David Read:
Bridget McGuire.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s the thing that she zeroed in on. She’s like, “Is this you? Did you do this?” “Yes, I did.” “Can you do it again?” I said, “Well, yes, I can.” I didn’t know at the time, but I imagine that she had already had the brief that Stargate was moving into a world where they were trying to create some defenses. At some point, someone’s like, “The Earth needs some defenses beyond shovels.”

David Read:
Exactly, need something a little bit more advanced.

Peter Bodnarus:
Something a little bit more advanced.

David Read:
As a designer, if two people were to come to me, one would be like, “Would you like to do the new addition to the Guggenheim? Or would you like to design spaceships?” “Hmm, It’s a tough call. I don’t know.” My gosh.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s the thing. In architecture, no one’s gonna come up to me and say, “Hey, how about an addition to the Guggenheim?” They’re gonna come up to me and say, “We need a warehouse in a suburb, are you in?”

David Read:
OK, fine. The Guggenheim and spaceships are comparable. Very well.

Peter Bodnarus:
Guggenheim and spaceships are comparable. But if someone’s like, “Hey, we’ve got another warehouse, we need another big box in the suburb. What do you say? Maybe we’ll let you add a little pokey thing at the entry, but we’ll probably cut that out at the end because of budgets.”

David Read:
What’s the first thing Brigitte threw at you?

Peter Bodnarus:
The first thing was that, you know what? This is lore, what you’re hearing now is lore. I have two teenage boys; one plays Destiny and all of us play D&D and lore is kind of a big part of our life. This is lore: here I am, day two of Stargate, maybe day four. I’m settling in, got my computer, met Peter DeLuise, he made us all crack up.

David Read:
He’s bad, man. You’re not gonna get any work done around him.

Peter Bodnarus:
I really like working with directors who are also actors because their focus is on the actors and that just makes for more entertaining television. Anyway, day two, day three, Bridget walks into the art department and she goes, “Who wants to design a space fighter?” I swear to God. I’m pretty chill, laid-back guy and I literally said, “Pick me.”

David Read:
It’s like the Leafs have scored.

Peter Bodnarus:
Like the Leafs had scored, exactly. Or Canucks, depending on…

David Read:
OK, fine.

Peter Bodnarus:
Not Boston. Not Boston. No, you don’t do that.

David Read:
They had “Tangent” established with the X-301 in Season Four and you had the death gliders. That’s what you’re designing this thing from because we’re reverse engineering, essentially, Goa’uld tech and that’s where this thing comes from.

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes and that’s what I found so exciting. I agreed to this without knowing what I was doing. I had been catching up on my Stargate episodes after I had the interview. I was hired some time in December but I hadn’t gotten to that episode. We watched all those episodes as an art department. That’s where I began to understand this idea of we’re gonna be defending the Earth using reverse engineered Goa’uld technology. My pitch, this was my first design pitch ever in film, basically, we need a Goa’uld death glider, but it has to be built by the Tau’ri. I said, “Why don’t we make a death glider and mash it up with the F-117 stealth fighter?” They bought it and they said, “Great. Go for it.”

David Read:
Those are those lines.

Peter Bodnarus:
The 12-year-old me inside was shaking. I was like, “Oh, God. Oh, my God. Is this real? Am I…” The adult that has had a couple of design degrees and has worked in Germany and has worked in the North with First Nations is like, “OK, what’s the design brief?”? First of all, it’s gotta look cool, OK. This is Stargate’s first spaceship and we need to announce that this is something exceptional. Second thing is that it has to work with the story. There’s one of my sketchbook pages; that’s another idea that I had. It wasn’t in the script but I thought that the ejection handles on the old, I think it was the F-4 Phantom, were over the head. Nowadays, I think the ejection handles are lower ’cause gravity works that way. But I had an idea, I pitched the ejection handles by the head. I’m new to film at this time, I am new to television and so I had designed these incredibly cool ejection seat-type seats for the spaceship. They’re all like, “That’s great, but we can’t see the actors’ heads.” You can see in that sketch there that it’s quite tall and bulky and so you’re not gonna be able to do 50-50s and overs. I took that to heart and I designed a lower version of it so it’s more at the neck height; it still allows the ability to look behind. The other imperative was that we be able to have the face of both actors in frame at the same time so that’s where the stepped cockpit comes from. None of that looks like it was designed to work for the TV show. I tried to make it look like this is how this machine is and why would it be any other way?

David Read:
This is coming forward out of Air Force and Navy tech and there’s gonna be a certain design familiarity there because they are of the same family; they are of the same kind. It’s the same military, just one is a little bit quieter than the other ones are, so it makes a lot of sense. We have some maquettes here as well that we were alluding to before. Let’s have a look. I have not seen this. I’ve seen a lot of the maquettes and I sold a few of them through Propworx and this is not one I’ve come across.

Peter Bodnarus:
I don’t know what happened to that one. I was new to this world and I had no idea, at the time, the interest this kind of stuff would generate. I built that out of paper and I hate to say it, I think it might have been recycled. This is where the computers come in. I did all these sketches and marker concepts, but to actually get all those facets, I built it in the computer and then I was able to lay those flat facets out and fold and assemble. The jet intakes you see in the back were also a request from the director and the producers. If there’s a bit of scenery behind their heads, then every time we shoot back, we’re not shooting into a star screen or a green screen or something that’s complicated and expensive. I took all of the production asks and I tried to make them feel as though they were a natural part of what this machine would be. This is an example of working up the graphics. Again, it’s human Earth technology so it’s gotta have all those things. It’s got explosive bolts, it’s got no-step lines, it’s got ejection seat warnings, all those graphics. I had done those graphics in red. I think in the final model, in the final visual effects, I think the graphics were all black. That’s the 3D model. This is a long time ago so obviously the rendering and texturing is much more advanced now.

David Read:
Hey, it still looks pretty good, Peter.

Peter Bodnarus:
Thank you. That is a 25-year-old model, my friend.

David Read:
Wow. It’s pretty close.

Peter Bodnarus:
22-year-old model. The blue Naquadah generators I don’t think lasted. I think that went away.

David Read:
That’s what those are. That’s cool to know.

Peter Bodnarus:
I think that was carrying some kind of Naquadah fuel pods and stuff.

David Read:
Speaking of carrying.

Peter Bodnarus:
There you go. That was a very simple Photoshop mock-up that I did. I did a rendering of the ship…

David Read:
The gate. It looks like someone flew up there with O’Neill alongside the 747 and took that while he was trying to get the gate out of the atmosphere. It really does. I buy it.

Peter Bodnarus:
There was so much invested in this project. Every idea that we pitched, Brad Wright would listen to it. Some ideas he’d be like, “Nope” and other ideas he would be like, “Yeah, we can probably make that work.” They’d pitch, “What if they were carrying it on a 747, like the space shuttle?” I said, “Well, why don’t I work up a maquette, a little Photoshop mock-up, and see how it works?”

David Read:
Wow. What is it like working with Brad Wright and Rob Cooper?

Peter Bodnarus:
It’s brilliant. I’ve never had an experience like that since. My only regret is that I didn’t realize how amazing it was because I was just so new to this business. The sense about Stargate was that, in a traditional corporate world, this is your power pyramid. I’m not even on the same floor as the decision makers. But in Stargate, we were literally on the same floor as the decision makers.

David Read:
Across the hall.

Peter Bodnarus:
They were across the hall and I really tried not to take advantage of that. I was able to get the feedback that I needed to move things forward and there wasn’t a lot of spinning my wheels and backing and forthing. I would come up with a concept, there’s Brad, “Hey, Brad, here’s my Puddle Jumper concept.” He’s like, “Too Star Trek.”

David Read:
He’ll be the one to know.

Peter Bodnarus:
I’m like, “Fair enough.” This is absolutely the approach. I would see Cooper in the hall and he would be speaking out the dialogue. He would be reading the dialogue to himself out loud and you could see that there’s this seriousness about the writing and this seriousness about the craft of writing and about the craft of character building. That’s where I learned that play is… Play is not a dirty word. Play is a key part of serious work. There’d be Rob Cooper, you could hear him reading out the dialogue and then you’d go into Peter DeLuise’s office and Peter DeLuise had all these action figures, beautiful collectible action figures from different series, Terminator, all a generous size. I said, “Why do you have all these collectible figures?” He’s like, “When we’re working out a scene, I bring these figures, these toys, down and we work out the scene with these figures.”

David Read:
With the 101 Terminator? That’s great.

Peter Bodnarus:
Yeah.

David Read:
The T-800.

Peter Bodnarus:
I can’t remember which figures… I think there might have been Hellboy in there or something. They were working out scenes and working out ideas using visual props and that really stuck with me. I don’t know if you can see in the back there, but up in the top of my bookshelf there, my tokonoma, you can see there’s three sculptures up there.

David Read:
What are they?

Peter Bodnarus:
I can get them for you if you’re interested.

David Read:
What am I looking at? Are they special designs or… I’m worried we’re gonna run out of time.

Peter Bodnarus:
Shit. OK. They’re basically concept generators. They’re idea generators. I create these shapes, I put ’em on a stick and then if I’m designing something and I need an idea, I can look at these guys. I got that idea from Peter DeLuise.

David Read:
Wow. The man is certainly brilliant, for sure.

Peter Bodnarus:
There’s the ejection handles you can see and also the lowered headrest. That’s our sliding front to the X-302.

David Read:
They used this to the end of Atlantis.

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes. My only regret with the design is that I didn’t put more detail on that front, that front kind of snoot where all the credit HDV was.

David Read:
I can understand the need. I was wrong, the first season of Universe also used it as well. There is sometimes a need to fill things in. Blank means something’s missing. Not necessarily, but the creative part of you is like, “Is this the best you got? Seriously?” I totally get it.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s a pretty minor thing. Overall, I think we nailed it. I really have to credit Brad and Rob and Bridget for trusting in the process.

David Read:
The first time I’m seeing this, the spokes or the fins or the projections on the front, are the exact same ones, the exact same inspiration for the Daedalus. With the towers coming out of the front of the ship and the top of the ship, at least that’s what I’m seeing.

Peter Bodnarus:
These are weapons so they need pokey bits.

David Read:
Absolutely. If you’re gonna kamikaze, you want it to hurt just a little bit more.

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly.

David Read:
Is this Brad Wright and Rob?

Peter Bodnarus:
Apparently, that’s from Area 51 and those are scientists working on the kit of the actual X-301. I don’t know how you got a hold of this image, but apparently Brad Wright is also a scientist in Area 51. That’s Brad, myself and Jim Ramsay, who was one of our very talented set designers.

David Read:
Wow. I always knew those guys were saying all this stuff for plausible deniability. All right.

Peter Bodnarus:
This stuff, sometimes it’s more real than we realize.

David Read:
Exactly.

Peter Bodnarus:
There’s Colonel O’Neill checking out the equipment.

David Read:
Martin Wood.

Peter Bodnarus:
Martin Wood, great guy to work with. Right now, the set is sitting on a container in an airplane hangar.

David Read:
Wow. Oftentimes they just used an empty, or partially empty, production studio at Bridge and pretended like it was a hangar as well. This one you have the exterior that you flip it over and you see either the exterior or a larger space, so this was actually one that they went to.

Peter Bodnarus:
We actually went to a hangar for a private jet. This was an inspiration that Brad had, which was fantastic. He’s like, “Let’s put this thing on a truck and we’re gonna tow it around like they’re taxiing.” We did it at golden hour and the effect was amazing.

David Read:
You don’t need much to tell the story.

Peter Bodnarus:
No. You don’t need much if you have very talented crews. What I learned during my time with Stargate was just how much you can do with cameras and lighting and framing. One of the secret weapons of the production designer and the art director is the camera department and the lighting department. The way they choose to frame and light things really impacts how it looks on camera. The lesson I’ve taken from Stargate is that you make the things that you design as easy for the crews to work with as possible and there’s a better chance that it’s gonna be on camera and that it’s gonna look good.

David Read:
Wow.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s an early sort of very simple concept exploring some ideas with undercarriage. That was one of the things about the design of the death glider and the X-302, is that that banked wing shape really fundamentally conflicts with functioning landing gear. We whistled past that one, mostly.

David Read:
I think the landing gear ended up being under the main fuselage.

Peter Bodnarus:
I think that was probably a much better solution. This is one of the things about film; you can’t have every idea. I was very proud of the X-302 and pulling that together but you need other people. There are things where you have most of the idea, but then someone’s like, “Hey, what about this?” You’re like, “Yes or no?” That’s what it was like working with Brad and with Peter, like, “Hey, what about this?” It’s like, “Yes or no,” or, “Now’s not the time.” It was all done very respectfully and professionally. I took that lesson with me. You need talent to survive in film and for film and television to have the life that it still has, you need that talent at every level.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s a little splash page I put together after the episode was wrapped to celebrate how it all came together.

David Read:
Wow. I always thought that this artwork on the top left was made for “Fallen,” but I guess they incorporated that into some of the concept art for “Fallen” later because this was already made. The next time we see that ship really outside of Earth’s atmosphere is at the beginning of Season Seven when O’Neill and Carter are going up against Anubis over whatever planet it was. That’s really cool.

Peter Bodnarus:
Quite often what happens is I’ll produce more artwork than is necessary and I’ll keep it in my back pocket.

David Read:
Rarely does anything go to waste. Rarely.

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly. This is the actual visual effects model that was built by the visual effects company. You can see that, while everything is pretty much true to what I’ve designed, they actually added their enhancements, which I really quite like too. I think if you go to my original image, the rockets were quite simple. Whereas here, the engines are a bit more developed and convincing.

David Read:
It’s a pretty ship.

Peter Bodnarus:
There’s the undercarriage there.

David Read:
It’s totally believable that if death gliders fly in this universe, and they do, that we could take inspiration from that. I gotta tell you, Peter, I have come across a guy who took your design and made it fly. I will send you the link for that, it’s a previous episode that we did.

Peter Bodnarus:
Please do. Please do. As a kid, I always built plastic models. I still have some that I do occasionally for relaxation. There are resin model kits that have been produced and I was seriously thinking about getting one, then it occurred to me, I could just go onto my computer and get the original thing. Out of the sheer joy of it, I think I may actually get myself one of these resin model kits.

David Read:
He built one that’s probably the length of, if you put your hands out, maybe a little bit shorter than that on either side. A friend told him, “That would never fly.” He’s like, “You don’t think so?” He’s like, “Yeah.” I forget what– he’s European. He said, “I’m gonna go,” and he built it. We’ve got video of it flying, I’ll send it to you. I didn’t think it could fly. He had to change the angle of attack a little, but it’s mostly there.

Peter Bodnarus:
My mouth is hanging open in amazement. I would love… Please send me that link. That is incredible.

David Read:
If we have a little bit of time, I’ll show it to you right here.

Peter Bodnarus:
We actually made a paper model of the X-302. We took all our information that we had created on the computer and were able to make an information sheet.

David Read:
Pull it forward a little bit. Fans are gonna wanna read some of what that says.

Peter Bodnarus:
I’ll read it out for you too. I actually wrote… This is the blurb that I wrote: “USAF X-302. Long shrouded in secrecy, the X-302 Advanced Strategic Interceptor is an awesome weapon. Rumored to be Earth’s frontline defense against off-world threat, the X-302’s weapon systems, propulsion and general specifications remain a closely guarded secret. What little we do know about the X-302 suggests that many key systems have been reversed-engineered from alien technology acquired through a shadow agency known only as SGC.”

David Read:
“And this comes from the Deep Web, written by Martin Lloyd.”

Peter Bodnarus:
We had a lot of fun.

David Read:
Man, that’s great.

Peter Bodnarus:
Thank you.

David Read:
Here’s Prometheus.

Peter Bodnarus:
Here we go. Prometheus.

David Read:
Bridget McGuire said she didn’t even have a month’s heads-up. They’re like, “OK, so we’ve got maybe around a month, but not a lot. We got a spaceship coming up for the mid-season two-parter. What can you do?” It was like, “Here we go.” They gave you the money and season over season, you guys literally built on top and built out on the Norco sets this amazing structure that stood from Season Six of SG-1 to the end of Season One of Universe.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s an example, I think, of what I was talking about. You need a team of talent. Bridget had this brilliant concept where the set was built as a race car track with a bar in the middle. We had these big doors that could look like walls and these doors open up and down. With the design of this set, that center place could be a room, it could be an elevator and that was incredible. I had more involvement in the design of the bridge. The design brief that came from that was that when the actors are shooting, the front consoles are raised because you need the heads at roughly the same level for framing. Instead of that being a challenge, it becomes an opportunity. Let’s have some cool level changes in the floors. One thing that I struggled with in the design of spaceships is just how absolutely spacious they tend to be, because they have to work for filming.

David Read:
This is not the ISS.

Peter Bodnarus:
If you look at a real spaceship, like the space shuttle, the bulkheads are right above you so you can have access to the switches and stuff and the bulkheads are like that. We came up with this compromise where the systems panels to the side, we built down the bulkheads so that you could create that feel of you’re almost in a cockpit. When you move to the center where O’Neill and the other people kind of running things would be, you had a little more space. We had the table in the back for the situational brief and management of what’s going on. We took a lot of ideas about how the space shuttle would work and how the bridge of an aircraft carrier would work and we glommed those together.

David Read:
I gotta tell you, man, I dislike the exterior of Prometheus. James Robbins was very understanding when I admitted this to him because it was clearly a mandate: “this is the first ship, this needs to be function over form, period.” It has that design. When the Daedalus came on screen it was like, “Oh, thank God.” That was my reaction. It flies overhead like this…it looks like a turtle, I love turtles.

Peter Bodnarus:
Brad learned his lesson. Brad’s mandate was, “let’s make it look like an aircraft carrier in space.” That’s why it has that big, flat top and it has the superstructure off to one side. It does have the Prometheus structure buried inside it. We tried to be honest about it.

David Read:
The Daedalus, you mean?

Peter Bodnarus:
The Daedalus, yeah.

David Read:
It’s like you’ve taken the upper decks off and then just put this thing on. You wanna see something amazing? This was made by a fan… hundreds and hundreds of pieces of styrene.

Peter Bodnarus:
That is incredible. I can feel the tingles on my back looking at this thing.

David Read:
He designed this thing from the ground up. I’ve lost the comm tower, I need to glue it back in. Peter, it is probably the prize of my collection in terms of what fans have made, it took him months to build.

Peter Bodnarus:
Please, please, please tell him this is… Oh, my God.

David Read:
I will indeed, because the talent that your teams inspire in people is out of this world.

Peter Bodnarus:
The passion we bring to things obviously…

David Read:
Translates.

Peter Bodnarus:
… someone’s paying attention.

David Read:
Someone is paying attention, indeed, for sure.

Peter Bodnarus:
I gotta say, we’ll save it for next time, the Daedalus, I started at the back, with the engines.

David Read:
There’s a lot of ’em. You got thrusters, you got hyperdrive, there’s a little of everything there. Why did you start at the back? I’m curious.

Peter Bodnarus:
It was the script. It was about this thing reaching out across the universe and if we’re gonna do that, we need a lot of power. That’s where that’s coming from. A lot of the stuff that I’m designing, it’s like, “oh, that’d be cool,” or, “oh, we’ve got 6,000 bread pans, let’s see if we can make a spaceship out of that.” The script is always the generator; it’s always where your ideas should start. Sometimes you don’t understand what’s in the producer’s head. Other times, they don’t understand what’s in their head and then you’re like, “Hey, I read this and this is what I thought.” They’re like, “Oh my God, yes.” That’s where that came from.

David Read:
Wow. It’s our first extragalactic vehicle. It’s the only thing that rivals anything the Asgard ever made and it’s my favorite Earth ship, period. F-302 in close second, but she’s a beauty and I cannot wait to get to those designs with you. Let that percolate over the next few weeks in terms of those stories.

Peter Bodnarus:
I certainly will. Maybe as a thank you I’ll send you a signed copy of the sketch.

David Read:
Oh my God, I would love that. That’s absolutely cool. Now this, I first thought was from one of the meeting rooms in Atlantis, ’cause it has the design architecture, and then I see in the corner Nirrti’s DNA sequencer, which was a story that was partly brought forward by Jacqueline Samuda. This is the upper chamber.

Peter Bodnarus:
We were dropping these little hints about the Ancients as Season Six progressed. I didn’t know, obviously, Brad had the story arc all worked out and I was just following his cues. We were introducing these little Easter eggs about Ancient technology. Had I really fully understood what was going on, I would’ve played with it even more.

David Read:
Your message is reaching across time. You sent me a file that was made for a show that came out in 2002, and I look at it and go, “I saw that two years later on a ceiling.” It’s the same race, so it works. You were given enough.

Peter Bodnarus:
It’s funny, I look at things and I see a lot of the stuff that was initially turned down. I was a little creative reactor. I was like, “Oh, we can do this, and we can do that.” I realize now, for our next meeting, I’ll have my sketchbooks ready and then I can show you. Each season is in a sketchbook; the sketchbook is packed with ideas.

David Read:
No, absolutely. Let’s do that. Especially, you and I have good quality cameras, not every guest that comes on has good cameras. I really appreciate it.

Peter Bodnarus:
During COVID, art directing remotely is a difficult thing. I made sure that I had the resources.

David Read:
Absolutely. They can’t just make sure that you’re present. You’re doing a little bit more detail than that. The next one that I have for people, I have marked the file as red herring. Garwin Sanford, who played the Tollan Narim, came on Dial the Gate a few years ago and revealed that during the 100th episode bash for Season Five’s “Wormhole X-Treme!” there was a party. The cast and crew were all there and the extended satellite casts were also brought in. Brad and Rob, I can’t remember who it was specifically, came up to Garwin and said, “Even though the Tollan were destroyed earlier this season, we’re considering bringing them back.” He told us this story and it was like, “Oh, my God!” We were always wanting a third part to that. The Tollans, it felt like they went too soon. OK, so if I’m remembering the name correctly, this is “Forsaken.”

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes.

David Read:
This is the Seberus and this is 60% of a ship.

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes.

David Read:
We only really designed the side. In the wide shot at the end, I think we see the full thing.

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly.

David Read:
Digitally.

Peter Bodnarus:
We stuck it in the sand at a weird angle and then the actual set was at a different angle. I was like, “It’s television.” I wasn’t too worried about it. We did resolve it in the design of the ship in case there were questions being asked as to why that’s pointing up when the set is level.

David Read:
I didn’t even think of that until now. Thanks for breaking my imagination 20 years later.

Peter Bodnarus:
See? It’s like, “No, I knew that.” We were like, “Oh my God, when people see it, they’ll think….” It’s like, “No, they won’t.” That was really interesting, because one of the things that was happening in Season Six is that we were spending a whole lot of money. We didn’t have an unlimited budget the way that other science fiction shows did. Eventually, Bridget was like, “We need to limit sculpting. We need to limit those kinds of forms.” That set was all carpenters and all flat surfaces. You can do a lot with flat surfaces.

David Read:
Yes, that’s true.

Peter Bodnarus:
There’s a lot of dynamic and a lot of energy and we have incredibly talented people on the show, these guys. You’ve got carpenters who used to build boats and build guitars so they have a real capacity for creating complex shapes with plywood and Medite and things like that. That ship was a lot of fun. The set decorators showed up and they went, “Hey, we went to an auction and we got like 200 of these industrial baking forms.” I don’t know what the hell they were, but they were these beautiful metal sheets that had these punched shapes. We’re like, “Let’s take those and let’s build a spaceship.” That’s what we did.

David Read:
I was having a conversation recently, I can’t remember who it was. Damn it. You take something off the shelf and it’s like, “Ah, it’s a dental pick.” It’s one thing and then you put it in the show and it’s like, “What is that? What is that? It’s a dental pick? Ah, it is. It is a dental pick.” One, I’m thinking, “That is so creative.” Two, it’s like, “What kind of brain does it take to turn that into that?” I don’t get it. It’s not in here. I tell you this right now.

Peter Bodnarus:
In model building, they call it kit bashing.

David Read:
That’s right.

Peter Bodnarus:
Where you take a piece of a tank and you stick it on and it becomes a spaceship city or something.

David Read:
It’s how we got the Death Star surface.

Peter Bodnarus:
One thing though, “Hey, let’s take this thing and put it in a different context. Let’s take this glass soap dish and it becomes a lamp on a wall.” That actually happened. The second part to that equation, though, is the actors and what they do with it. I can’t remember the actor’s name.

David Read:
More information.

Peter Bodnarus:
Sorry?

David Read:
More information.

Peter Bodnarus:
OK, he was on Star Trek, not Discovery. The one where it was before…

David Read:
Enterprise.

Peter Bodnarus:
Enterprise.

David Read:
Enterprise is the prequel.

Peter Bodnarus:
He was on Enterprise and he was a guest star with us.

David Read:
Connor Trinneer played Michael in Season Two of Atlantis.

Peter Bodnarus:
We had this Goa’uld control panel called, I think it was called City Lights or something. It had all this kind of stuff on it. Gak. None of it functioned, there were no buttons to push, It was a thing with a bunch of stuff glued on. I’m sure there were bits of different things that we stuck together and painted. He started operating this thing like each thing had a function. It was like those activity centers where you put the baby’s crib. He was turning knobs that didn’t turn and he was operating slides that weren’t there; they were these fixed things. His performance brought this piece of scenery to life. After I saw that, that took a lot of pressure off me. I was like, “What if this thing doesn’t work the way…” If it’s an absolutely 100% scripted prop, it better do what the hell you tell it; what you promise, what the director’s asked for. If you need that drawer to open up in the Daedalus and then inside are the crystals that show the connection between the Goa’uld and the human technology, it better do that. But for a lot of your design, you can create opportunities.

David Read:
Trust your talent to play make-believe.

Peter Bodnarus:
It seems effortless, but acting is an incredible skill. You see the performers and you see how good they are at their craft. Watching that happen, it gave me permission to start playing and adding and creating opportunity. I’m still fulfilling the design, I’m still fulfilling the design brief, I’m doing what the script wants, I’m doing what the producers want, I’m doing what the camera needs, but I’m also creating opportunities.

David Read:
Absolutely. I can just imagine, “Connor, what were you doing?” “Well, I don’t know, I was doing my thing.” Some of them just go into this zone.

Peter Bodnarus:
They’re doing their thing. Don’t look at ’em, don’t hit the eye line. Let them do their thing and sometimes it’s magic.

David Read:
Then Peter, you bring me this sketch and it was, “oh my gosh, there’s more evidence that that was moving forward as an idea.” Tollan personal vehicle. There’s no mistaking that that is clearly from Tollan technology and 6th of June 2002. This is around the same time that Prometheus was probably going to camera, if I’ve got my dates right. Tell me about this image whatever you can, because I am all ears.

Peter Bodnarus:
Again, it was a conversation in the hall with Brad and Peter and whomever. “Hey, we’ve got this society and their technology is about here.” I said, “That’s cool.” I went back to my desk and I started playing around. I said, “Hey, what about this?” They’re like, “Eh, we’ll file it.” That’s as far as it went.

David Read:
I’m thrilled that we have it now, because it’s a little bit more of what could have been. It’s great to see.

Peter Bodnarus:
You can see on the page that I’m playing with a number of ideas. On the top layer are subtractive forms and, on the bottom, the actual one that I rendered is a little more additive form.

David Read:
I love the organic-ness of this. I can see how these kinds of things eventually led you to the Jumper a little while soon. This is good stuff.

Peter Bodnarus:
Cheers.

David Read:
Season 7 of SG-1, “Fallen” and “Homecoming” is an open two-parter. The first episode really features the F-302 heavily. We take out Anubis, we disable him, and then he’s like, “Hmm, I need more Naquadah.” He goes to Kelowna, which is now Langara.

Peter Bodnarus:
On Langara.

David Read:
Yes. Not actually Langara-Langara in Canada.

Peter Bodnarus:
Langara’s the planet and Kelowna is the nation state.

David Read:
It’s the nation state by this point. It looks as though you were designing something that may have gone up to fight against the Goa’uld assault. I’m curious, because Langara is 1950s Earth technology. This thing looks pretty darned advanced.

Peter Bodnarus:
There was a book that I had when I was a kid, it was American Jet Bombers of the 1940s. After World War II, the Americans got their hands on all this German research and they started experimenting like crazy with different types of swept wings. This is where the Sabre came from and it ultimately resulted in the B-47 which was a revolutionary sort of thing. They had access to all these German experimental designs. I took this book and I’m like, “You know what? I’m gonna say that the Kelownans are experimenting with jet power as well.”

David Read:
They would have had to have had a delivery system for the Naquadria bomb that we know that they drop. It makes sense that something like this would indeed exist.

Peter Bodnarus:
I’m a designer and I’m full of ideas and things are not necessarily jiving with what’s happening with the script. This was a little bit too advanced. Kelowna was kind of industrial 1940s and this is a little bit too far out.

David Read:
It’s still hella cool.

Peter Bodnarus:
I like to play around with ideas and sometimes they stick. Sometimes, because an idea doesn’t get used, I keep it in my back pocket and it may show up somewhere else.

David Read:
Absolutely. Every time I see this I have to check the text because I think it’s upside down. Which way is the text facing?

Peter Bodnarus:
That was not an entirely successful attempt. “OK, I’ll do a ship where all the interesting stuff is on the bottom.” That really, really doesn’t work.

David Read:
You see it in the background of the space race shot, so it is there.

Peter Bodnarus:
That was playing around with the idea of making all the interesting stuff on the bottom.

David Read:
This one too. Muirios’ ship, the Etan Mayo. That’s cool. You gave it a name.

Peter Bodnarus:
I think that was from the script, actually. You’re trying to tell a story of speed and power so you’re sort of playing around with that.

David Read:
I’m trying to think, this would have been 2002. In 2001, Voyager had done a space race episode. Were you aware of it? How much did Brad tell you to stay away from it?

Peter Bodnarus:
I wasn’t aware of it. I was a huge TOS fan as a kid. I loved Kirk and Spock and Bones and all those guys. The Next Generation universe never really stuck with me.

David Read:
Boy, are you missing out. But OK, to each their own.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s what my wife says. She’s been to Trek conventions; she’s a huge fan. We’ve been watching Next Generation, catching up. But at the time, for whatever reason, mostly because when Next Generation was big, I was in architecture school and I didn’t have a TV.

David Read:
Makes sense. For sure. You had your head in the books.

Peter Bodnarus:
No, I wasn’t aware. I think that was actually probably a help.

David Read:
I agree. For sure.

Peter Bodnarus:
That is inspired by a record player needle. That one is a little bit sort of Star Wars-y for me. You’re playing around.

David Read:
Everything leads to something. How long does it take for a sketch like this?

Peter Bodnarus:
That one, you can see that I start with a blue pencil. If I’ve worked out the shapes and I’m pretty happy with the shapes, I’d say two hours max.

David Read:
Wow. Compared to something like this.

Peter Bodnarus:
That one’s about half a day.

David Read:
This is “Birthright.” This is the Hak’tyl settlement, specifically Ishta’s tent in Stargate SG-1 Season Seven. Notoriously, it looks like this on the outside, but when they switch to the interior, it looks like a completely different place.

Peter Bodnarus:
We whistle past that one.

David Read:
We’ll whistle past the graveyard on that one, but this is so cool, man.

Peter Bodnarus:
Thank you. Bridget had shared some travel photos from Southeast Asia and that was the inspiration for that. I can’t tell you the actual area where she was, but she showed me these beautiful raised sorts of structures. That was the inspiration that we started with.

David Read:
Wow. Awesome. This is “Fallout.” This is the last episode I have for you from working on SG-1, which is, I think, really telling because you just talked about The Core and this is a very, very similar concept. We’ve got to stop a planet from wiping out everyone on the surface. This is the driller, I believe. Was it hard to steer away from the design elements of things that you saw in The Core? Or was it very easy, where it’s like, “OK, they did this, so I’m gonna go in this direction?” How do you approach that? Surely, on some level, a fear of transposition is playing about in your imagination.

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes, and that’s where having access to the producers helps a lot ’cause they’ll keep us on the straight and narrow. If you can go back to that sketch, the top, you can see that’s actually very much like The Core where you’ve got those circular, almost like frilled skirts. That was The Core propulsion system. That didn’t survive, that went away. We actually went to a track system. It became this three-dimensional caterpillar. What made it easy to steer away from the core was that we had the Kelowna design brief. By starting with Kelowna as the technology, that gave us enough cues that we could steer away from The Core.

David Read:
What would this have looked like in the 1940s and ’50s without unobtainium?

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly.

David Read:
Makes a lot of sense.

Peter Bodnarus:
That’s where tracks come in. I don’t know what that is. There were all these worlds that we’re visiting and that was me pitching an idea.

David Read:
That’s cool. I wish we had seen something like it.

Peter Bodnarus:
It might show up on another show. Again, playing around with these ideas of what would the technology on these other worlds look like.

David Read:
You’re pretty early on. This is February, so you guys are only beginning to start shooting.

Peter Bodnarus:
What happens is at the beginning of the season, everyone’s really excited and really happy.

David Read:
You’re not beat down yet.

Peter Bodnarus:
Not beat down yet. Brad’s like, “Hey, so this is what’s happening this year. We’re gonna be going to this planet and we’re gonna be seeing these people and this is gonna happen.” He doesn’t get into the specific plot details but he paints a broad picture of the worlds that we’re going to. I would take that and run with it. What I did is that I wouldn’t go running into his office going, “Oh, hey, Chief, what about this?” I was a little bit more subtle than that. I would sketch all this stuff and then I’d make a copy of it, color it and then stick it up in the art department around my desk and have these things on the wall. People come by and they’d be like, “Hey, what’s that?” Like, “What do you think it might be?”

David Read:
Does it inspire anything? We’re at the wet your whistle phase.

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly. That’s one of the things that got me in love with film and television; this idea of openness to where ideas might take you. That’s Kelowna, a little bit more in the timeline of the society. That’s a three-engine bomber where the wing is the fuselage.

David Read:
Ah. This is probably what the Naquadria bomb was delivered in.

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes. One of the difficulties though in my role in Stargate is, as much as I loved designing these things, if it was a purely visual effect, I was limited as to how much time I could spend on that. My job was to make sure that there was beautiful scenery that we could move the story forward in. Designing these purely visual effect objects, it was a little more me hoping to mildly direct where they might wanna take the design of these things. That one I was pretty happy with.

David Read:
That looks really cool.

Peter Bodnarus:
Now that I’m seeing these again, I was like, “Oh, I may actually start whipping those up in 3D.”

David Read:
We’re wetting your whistle now. That’s what happens with some: “I can do something with that.”

Peter Bodnarus:
Exactly. I can’t remember which episode it was, but there were some drones, so I just sketched some ideas for drones.

David Read:
It looks like a UAV of some sort, the next version.

Peter Bodnarus:
I think those are pretty much copied from stealth UAVs.

David Read:
Another plane design.

Peter Bodnarus:
I don’t know where I was going with that one.

David Read:
I like it. It’s cool.

Peter Bodnarus:
I was interested in the idea of symmetrical but not even numbers. I think in all of these Kelownan aircraft, I’ve got two engines but there’s three wing bays. In this one I got two wing bays but there’s three engines.

David Read:
There are three nations so there’s a lot of three in that storytelling. I’m not surprised at all.

Peter Bodnarus:
That must’ve been subconscious. That happens too, where you’re immersed in this world and you pick up on cues that sometimes you’re not aware of.

David Read:
No, we influence ourselves artistically in ways that we can’t even think of. Peter, going through the SG-1 art has really brought back a lot of stuff. I drew all the time as a kid. For Christmas, for the longest time I didn’t get toys, I got blank sheets of paper and pencils and crayons. That’s what I wanted. They’re like, “That’s what he wants for Christmas. I wanted the canvas and different kinds. Then, one year, I got a tape recorder and never looked back, here I am. I can see the design of that where that all comes from that kind of place; looking at a blank canvas and saying, “OK, what’s gonna come out?” What’s gonna come out is what you’ve consumed. You can’t help it. That’s your context. That’s what you have to work with and here it is. It makes a lot of sense.

Peter Bodnarus:
That would be advice to the kids out there: build that internal dictionary of experience. If you wanna have a creative career, take an interest in the world.

David Read:
Enlarge your canvas.

Peter Bodnarus:
Enlarge your canvas.

David Read:
Go places.

Peter Bodnarus:
Canvas.

David Read:
Explore.

Peter Bodnarus:
A canvas terrified me. A blank piece of paper terrified me as a kid. I started with model kits. Give me a rough idea of where I need to go. Building models and looking at books about World War II and airplanes and stuff like that started to give me the starting point where the blank canvas wasn’t so scary anymore.

David Read:
That’s cool. Peter, thank you. I really appreciate you coming on, sharing some details.

Peter Bodnarus:
My pleasure. This has been a lot of fun. I’m happy to do this again.

David Read:
This has been great. I’m thrilled that we ran so long that we get to do it again. I wanna tape your reaction to what I’m about to show you. Big enough?

Peter Bodnarus:
Yep.

David Read:
Can you hear it?

Peter Bodnarus:
Yes, I can hear it just fine.

David Read:
Here we go.

Peter Bodnarus:
That looks pretty damn good.

David Read:
Pretty damn good.

Peter Bodnarus:
Holy smokes.

David Read:
I don’t know how he can make it work with the GoPro on one side. How do you counterbalance it on the other? Yet he can fly it. There is a world of brilliant people out there that you inspire.

Peter Bodnarus:
So many of them are Stargate fans. I’ve been to Stargate conventions and so many Stargate fans are scientists and PhDs and academics and people that really have a real interest in the world. Stargate is about going outside of the world but it’s full of people that have a real interest in the world.

David Read:
It makes you wonder how much we can make here at home. Man, it turns out we can make quite a bit. It’s Joel’s music from SGU. Miss him terribly. He’s about to land. Crash.

Peter Bodnarus:
That part we didn’t quite work out.

David Read:
Isn’t it just brilliant?

Peter Bodnarus:
That was incredible. I can see what he’s done to sort of modify the wings, but it still looks like the F-302.

David Read:
There’s still a slant. It’s not much of one, but it’s pretty amazing. Glad I got to see your reaction to that. I’m gonna add that to the end of the show.

Peter Bodnarus:
Thank you, David. That was amazing.

David Read:
Peter Bodnarus, art director for Stargate SG-1 Seasons Six and Seven and Stargate Atlantis Seasons One and Two. We were planning on going through the entire show. We did go through the entire show, SG-1. We were planning on going through his entire time with the franchise. I don’t want to rush him. I can’t rush this guy. “What do I do?” I said, “Can you please come back for another episode?” “Yep, sure.” So, thank you, sir. We really appreciate you tuning in. I do not row alone. There are a number of people who help me pull this off, I’m gonna thank them here in a moment. If you enjoy Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, please click the Like button. It does make a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. If you want to get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. Clips from this episode will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. Thanks so much to my tremendous moderating team: Antony, Jeremy, Marcia, Sommer, Tracy, Raj, Lockwatcher, and Kevin. I cannot do this show without your help. Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, keeps DialtheGate.com up and running. My producer, Linda “GateGabber” Furey and my producer Kevin Weaver as well. That’s what we’ve got for you in this episode. Lots of stuff heading your way throughout the rest of the next couple of months here; we are in high gear trying to produce about four episodes per week. The complete current list is available at DialtheGate.com for guests and times. My name is David Read and I will see you on the other side.